Suree taps five lands. "Bestow Spirespine on my Kathari Screecher?" she asks.

"I'm pretty sure I'm walking into a trap here," you say, frowning. "How many cards do you have in your hand?"

"Just one," Suree says, holding it up.

You drum your fingers on the table. On the one hand, your opponent is practically telegraphing her response. On the other hand, though, you're at seven life, outnumbered, and have nothing that can block the Screecher - an all-out attack would spell doom for you at this point.

"I'll activate my Hatchet Bully for two damage to your Kathari Screecher," you say.

"And you're putting that -1/-1 counter on...?"

"My Citanul Woodreaders," you say. "That'll put it into my graveyard."

"Okay, I'll cast Wildsize in response, to make it 4/4 and give it trample. And I'll draw a card."

You sigh. "I guess it's getting Spirespine as an aura, then."

"And that translates into an 8/5 flyer," Suree says, smiling. "Attack with just my Screecher?"

You shake your head. "I'm at seven life," you say.

"And you have no blockers," Suree says, smiling.

"I do have a Moment's Peace that I can flashback, though."

"Oh, darn," Suree says, pouting. "I forgot about that."

You tap three mana and push your Moment's Peace off to the side. You may have staved off defeat this turn, but you're not exactly out of the woods yet: Your opponent still has a 6/3 flyer that can attack on her next opportunity.

Fortunately, you have some removal in hand: a Sundering Stroke that hasn't been released yet. It's the last weekend before your local game store's Throne of Eldraine prerelease, after all, so the Unabridged Cube is working overtime with the preview cards. Suree even has an Oakhame Adversary standing guard, but it's not exactly a factor in your plans just yet.

"This is weird, isn't it?" Suree points out.

"What's weird?"

"When I sat down, I wasn't expecting to play with a bunch of cards from an expansion that hasn't been released yet. Or dump a Spirespine on a flyer and go to town. Or use a Krasis Incubation to hold down a Vigor."

"You get that when you have to deal with one of each card ever printed."

"You mean it does have one of each card ever printed?"

"As far as we know," you say. "Are you casting that card you just drew?"

"It's just an Island," Suree shrugs, playing it. "Your turn."

You untap your permanents and draw a card. The problem with your situation right now, you muse, isn't that you're trying to survive against a 6-power flyer; it's that your opponent is still at 20 life. Even if you manage to dig yourself out of this hole, you have a very long and very uphill battle to fight.

Then you see that your draw for the turn is a Savage Stomp. Two removal spells is actually something of an improvement, seeing that you can at least take out Suree's strongest creatures. Assuming that Suree doesn't draw anything to recover, that might buy you enough time to swing the game over to your side.

Of course, there's also the possibility of you winning the game this turn. But short of any underhanded moves, how can you do that?

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Suree before the beginning of her next combat phase.

You are at 7 life, with the following cards in play:

• Runaway Steam-Kin
• Spiteful Sliver (with your Runed Stalactite attached)
• Hatchet Bully
• Vigor (with Suree's Krasis Incubation attached)
• 3 Mountains
• 6 Forests

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Savage Stomp
• Sundering Stroke

You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a substantial number of cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.

Suree is at 20 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Hammerhead Shark
• Glacial Wall
• Calcite Snapper
• Kathari Screecher (tapped, with Suree's Spirespine attached)
• Oakhame Adversary
• Fibrous Entangler
• Hystrodon
• 4 Forests (all tapped)
• 5 Islands (four tapped)

If you think you've got a great solution in mind, don't put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles@gatheringmagic.com with the subject line "Puzzle - Dirty Fighting" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, September 30, 2019. We'll include the best ones in next week's article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week's Puzzle

Correct solutions to last week's puzzle were received from Russell Jones, Max Bernstein, Nicholas Guren, Addison Fox, Sean Patrick Keatley, Hyman Rosen, and David Arnold.

Most solutions to last week's puzzle were only slightly off a correct sequence. This was because of the presence of a lot of damage-triggering and redirection effects - an ironic thing, considering that you're playing Mono-black. But another major question was whether or not Haakon, Stromgald Scourge would allow you to cast Smitten Swordmaster from your graveyard for its Sorcery component.

Fortunately, the Throne of Eldraine release notes were able to shed some light on this situation:

In short, Haakon will allow you to cast Knight spells from your graveyard... but the Curry Favor part of the card doesn't have those "Knight" characteristics and thus can't be cast based on Haakon's ability.

That said, this may be a moot point because you do have something that can return Smitten Swordmaster to your hand. "Because Haakon lets you cast Knights," Addison Fox writes, "the sorcery half is inapplicable. As such, we need to use Stitch Together to get the Smitten Swordmaster back in our hand, which requires one additional Black mana and some finagling to avoid Threshold."

"Is there anything more confusing than the combination of damage triggers and state-based actions?" Hyman Rosen asks. "Damage triggers trigger when damage is dealt, but do not go on the stack until state-based actions have been checked, so creatures with lethal damage will be in the graveyard before the triggers are stacked.

"In particular, if Order or Yawgmoth deals damage due to Spiteful Shadows, but is in the graveyard when the damage is dealt, its discard ability will not trigger at all for that instance of damage. Ordering everything correctly below is a (k)nightmare!"

Hyman's solution hinges on this particular point, seeing as Order of Yawgmoth is the only discard outlet you have, but you want to keep that Stitch Together until just the right moment:

Vern gives you a curious look. "I know I made these decks interesting to play, but I wasn't expecting that," he says.

"So does this even things out for us?" you ask. "And can I try that White Knight deck next?"

"We'll call it a draw," Vern says, smiling.